Categories

Slayer: World Painted Blood

At her slaytanic majesty’s request, the new Slayer album is finally out. Many bands have attempted to play faster – usually to comedic effect – but when it comes to sheer heaviness and relentless single-mindedness, Slayer remain the true destructors.

‘World Painted Blood’ lives off the tension between raving chaos and the most rigid discipline. On breakbone thrash tracks such as ‘Psychopathic Red’ or straight-up hardcore punkers like ‘Snuff’, the band toe the party line by offering a roller-coaster ride through arbitrary tempo changes and precise metallic sculptures, once again reaffirming their status as the devil’s prime musical architects. Elsewhere, there are ‘Seasons In The Abyss’ style hints at melody – just enough to add some subdued Sabbath spookiness, but not enough to repel Slayer fundamentalists.

Ever since Slayer’s inception, rumours were that the band held right-wing sentiments. ‘Americon’, a monolithic mid-tempo grinder, is a lyrically basic if heartfelt attack on US imperialism that sets the record straight.

World Painted Blood may not touch Slayer’s classic thrash trilogy (‘Reign In Blood’, ‘South Of Heaven’, ‘Seasons In The Abyss’), but after 26 years in the biz, the four Californian horsemen of the apocalypse have effortlessly created the best metal album of the year – as if to show the new blood how it’s done just before the new decade rolls in.

Not only are Slayer the metal genre’s most devastatingly effective proposition – they also count among the greatest rock outfits of all time. ‘World Painted Blood’ is further testament to their majestic credentials.

Slayer: Americon

With our callous minds we infect
Other ways of life no regrets
Like a masochist we instigate
While the rest of the world must tolerate

Americon, it’s all about the mother fucking oil
Regardless of the flag upon it’s soil
In a blood bath we pad our fucking greed
The price is high to maintain liberty

Americon, so here we live in a land of deceit
That imprison the minds of the weak
No immunity for swaying the odds
From this resistance strain americon

Americon, some feel the need to play god
No immunity for swaying the odds
From this resilient plague americon

With our poison minds we infest
Other ways of life we ingest
In a blood bath we steal you dignity
The price is high to maintain liberty